We watched and listened to one day’s worth of the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh for the position of Justice on the Supreme Court. It was at least a two-ring circus where the two rings were apparently from completely different planets. In one ring they were speaking very cordially with a person they respected and were offering him the time to explain himself and his relationships with others and many of his accomplishments and even the manner and procedures he uses and would use were he to be approved, or even not approved, as then he would return to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In the other ring, they were burning some evil and demonic half-human beast which had been plaguing man for almost an eternity in order to return it to its rightful level of the underworld. The demands were for this thing before them to admit his evils and confess. They held up big poster-boards delineating their accusations just in case nobody could hear their shrill cries. Some shook papers demanding explanations for the wording, some from back before the new millennia. No context was permitted; just confess to the crimes of using code words in messages sent likely before that was even an issue, let alone a well-worn issue. The difference was so far beyond stark that even our thesaurus was of no assistance in finding the best word.

We also watched parts of the confirmation hearing of Brett Kavanaugh for his current position on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. What a difference a mere decade makes. He was confirmed for the position and apparently all they way back in 2006 Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like mother’s milk and kindness for all mankind. Kavanaugh was confirmed by a vote of 57-36 in the U.S. Senate on May 26, 2006, and received commission on May 29, 2006. Fifty-three Republicans and four Democrats voted “yea,” and seven members did not vote. Yes, the vote was still partisan back then, but we have noted something ever since Justice Bork was nominated and pilloried into regretting being born and requesting his nomination be retracted; when a Democrat President nominates a Justice, they are usually confirmed with a fair to large number of Republican Senators voting to confirm but when a Republican President nominates a Justice, they are roasted alive and receive virtually no if a mere few Democrat votes and this has only gotten progressively worse as time passes. We fully expect that Justice Brett Kavanaugh will be approved and are willing to predict that in the final vote, he will receive approximately three Democrat Senator’s votes for appointment, which also is sufficient to cover any recalcitrant Republicans.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearing Photo Shoot

The grilling from the Democrat side of the committee was actually frightening and would be sufficient for any rational person who could avoid such to do exactly that and avoid being vindictively accused of every potential criminal act which can be construed no matter the extent to which facts would need be twisted. Brett Kavanaugh was accused of racial bias code words for racial profiling which proved his racist decision for which, and here is the clincher, he wrote the decision for his side’s vote, the actual paper record of this horrifically racist vote. When the other side of the room got their turn, one Senator insisted on making a comment for the record, namely that Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote the decision for a unanimous decision of three Appellate Court Justices and that one of the three was appointed by President Clinton. But that leads to the basis of the problem which, we must point out, started from the top of the government and spread from there like a virus, a potent and virulent virus, spread across the entirety of the United States and possibly beyond unfortunately even affecting some here in Israel. This is a sad but honest assessment and one we make with regret as Israel can ill afford this split between progressive liberals and the nationalist, religious conservatives.

The United States is being ill served by the violence which has resulted from the left and their new cause of the “Resistance” which is their words for their belief that Trump somehow came by the Office of the President through some diabolical, fiendish, nefarious, malicious, criminal conspiracy involving Russian President Putin and possibly a pact with the devil himself. Their faith in the media prediction which claimed Hillary Clinton could not lose the election and two days before the election had a double-digit lead in the popular vote. What amazed people reading the hourly updates on election day was how, starting from the late afternoon and evening before the polls opened, the Hillary Clinton lead began shrinking and got smaller and smaller and by early afternoon on election day it was that she would win but it was somehow turning into an actual race which it was conceivable that Trump could become President. Here is the catch, there were many people, especially outside of the United States, who had taken the temperature of the people in the heartland, you know, flyover country, not the coasts or major cities, and they saw a Truman style win in the cards, you know, Dewey Defeats Truman style win. Those who made up what Hillary Clinton referred to as that ‘Basket of Deplorables’ in one of her off the cuff remarks, one that may have gotten Trump exactly the votes he required. The question many have is why there are so many people still this angry two years almost after the election. We did not see such activity and open hatred for any President before, not even George W. Bush for whom the denotation of suffering from BDS, which then meant Bush Derangement Syndrome, was worn with pride, but pretty much without any vile hatred of the kind we are witnessing now. And, as the “Resistance” is fond of pointing out, there was no such pushback against President Barack Obama because he was universally idolized by all Americans; otherwise, there might have been some form of opposition. The sad news they refuse to believe is there were very many people who were as, if not more, upset about President Obama as there are against Trump. They must have forgotten the Tea Party, though they tried to destroy and mischaracterize it at the time as a bunch of gun nuts and hicks who did not know anything about anything.

The problem is not that there is disagreement, that is often good for a democracy or republic. The problem is the differences have become a reason for hatred and the desire to destroy the other side. There have been people who have claimed that when they get power back, and that will come sooner or later, they will hunt down the Trump supporters and place them in reeducation centers so they can be brought to understand the correctness of the arguments and positions of the people who should be in charge because they are superior and their positions are the only morally acceptable positions. Others claim that the Trump supporters are all fascists because they refuse to understand the superiority of the leftist ideology and they have the audacity on insisting that nationalism is not an evil concept. Simply, those who love the United States and who also have firearms are a danger to the future of the world which can only be perfected by destroying the United States and merging it with the world at large. There are those who claim that the United States is what is wrong with the world and that the United States represents racism, classism, nationalism, fascism and is filled with hatred and inappropriate wealth which should be taken from them and distributed to the entire world. That would cure wealth in the United States for about nine months, and then most of that distributed wealth would be right back in the same people’s pockets from which it was removed.

We have seen how people are treated in the United States and in Israel. I have had jobs where the company chooses where they located by the price of the building and have witnessed the treatment of the homeless in both countries. There are more government provided shelters in the United States than Israel which makes sense as Israel is nowhere near as wealthy a nation nor near the size (Israel is the size of New Jersey). The difference is what I have witnessed in Israel is an almost universal feeling of caregiving. Many people who are not particularly wealthy themselves give to those most needful. A rare few give to all they come across who are in need, but most everyone has a few people whom they assist at every opportunity. In this manner, none of the homeless are going to starve and with some, the giver sees to it that their money is not spent on drugs or alcohol, or at least do their best to guide the needful off of these destructive tracks. Often I have seen people tell their “friend” in need that they will not give them anything when they smell of alcohol or drugs and only when they have worked themselves to better their lives. The people honestly care and it is contagious. What is even more remarkable is that these homeless individuals often enter a Synagogue and place some of their own money into the collection box, giving their Torah tithe of ten percent. There is no means of computing the amount given to these needful people; but from what we have witnessed, Israel should probably be ranked higher than its current ranking which is in the high thirties or low forties depending on source. The problem is that when this type of disruption such as what has afflicted the United States and has at least reached some media and far left political parties in Europe and Israel, then people harden their sympathies and charity tends to lessen leading to other problems.

As if the anger depicted in the hearings for Justice Kavanaugh and some of the spite and hate on social media are not bad enough, the people who broke into the Senate chambers disrupting the hearings by screaming and swearing showed a complete lack of respect and disregard for social niceties while imparting the deepest disrespect to all which actually makes the United States special, the fact that such hearings can prevent a President from placing friends or unqualified people into positions of power and respect. Justice Kavanaugh, though, is a very qualified, decent, honorable man who has a history of deciding cases on the laws as written and not as some people wish they were written, and that is how a nation of laws and not people or man should be adjudicated. About the only decent joke we have heard about the Kavanaugh hearings was a cartoon where the complaint was that Justice Kavanaugh had once left the seat up in the bathroom and for that he should be disqualified. What was the least funny was the report that members of the Senate upon hearing his name repeatedly said that his first name, Brett must mean that he was one of those jock frat boys. Such is plainly disrespectful. It is a shame that that might have been the highlight of the opposition.

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